Blu-Ray will Replace Notebook, Desktop DVD Burners in Most PCs in a Year

Today Betanews reported that BluRay will not reach end-user PCs till 2015, practically. There are strong reasons to dis-agree.

DVD (4.3GB)and Dual Layer DVD (8 GB) are no longer sufficient to handle the growing demands of the industry. Seven years back, we used to be happy with a 700mb CD and 10GB HDD. And today CD has a capacity of a joke and you have more space in your cellphones or thumb drives than a CD.

Growth of Data has risen exponentially. Starting from Operating System – Windows 95, for example, used to be <400mb after installation and grew to 13GB in windows 7, Games– NFS 2 was 350mb and NFS Undercover is 8GB. Movies used to be VCDs 700 MB, today they go upto 25GB and above in BluRay, the standard HD 1080p disc.

Thanks to the HD craze in everything we do -Movies, Music, Gaming; DVD fails to satisfy most of our daily needs. We need a standard like BluRay to meet all our hunger for data. A normal Bluray can go upto 110GB – Fair enough for the next 5years of portable data discs.

Blu-ray player sales are on a rapid climb, and Sony’s new PS3 Slim and cheaper PlayStation 3 are expected to cause an explosion in Blu-ray penetration. Next is what? PCs. It’s the same thing that happened with DVDs. They eneterd the Movies market, and PCs started having it.

Most of the High-end Notebooks and all Sony VAIO ship with BluRay RAM or ROM. A typical 50GB BluRay blank disc costs $2.5. that’s the cheapest we have ever seen per GB. Roughly 2cents for a GB. Who can stop this Evolution?

They eventually will find success, but during the next 1 year, that success will be rising exponentially in the PC segment.

According to the Blu-ray team: “Because Blu-ray utilizes a lens with a greater numerical aperture than HD-DVD or any other DVD, the laser spot can be focused with greater precision to fit more data on the same size disc. This allows Blu-ray to hold 25GB per layer (50GB and beyond on a dual-layer disc), whereas HD-DVD can only hold 15GB per layer (30GB on a dual-layer disc). Blu-ray has also adopted a higher data transfer rate for video and audio (54Mbps vs 36.55Mbps).”

On the Movies side of things, studios are rolling out more Blu-ray content every week, there doesn’t seem to be a long way from when every movie will appear on BluRay.

Some analysts predict by 2010, that BD drives will be installed in 50% of the new PCs – Desktop or Notebooks. No word on Netbooks though.

Last 20 years — The 3.5″ floppy was eventually replaced by the CD-ROM because of the dramatic increase in storage, and the precipitously low price of distributing software on that format I remember the stacks of floppies I used to use when installing Microsoft Office. Windows NT 3.1, for example, took up 22 diskettes could be put on a single CD-ROM.

1. Digital downloads will not eliminate the need for discs anytime soon.
2. Having one clear standard is a big advantage.
3. Blu-ray isn’t going to be replaced by another disc format anytime soon.
4. Prices for large-screen HDTVs will continue to drop.
5. Prices for Blu-ray players will continue to drop.
6. Prices for Blu-ray discs will drop to near DVD price levels.
7. Sony will sell lots of PlayStation 3 game consoles.
8. Sony can’t afford to have Blu-ray fail.
9. Sony and its partners will figure out a way to have Blu-ray resonate with the public — They already Have.

What’s More? Blu-Ray discs are scratch proof. No longer will you pile up old ones in your trash.

Lower production costs were the principal driver for CD-ROM (CD-R, CD-RW) to be replaced by DVD . But now, as most software can’t fit in DVDs, like certain Games, Software-SAP (100GB+), BluRay needs to evolve. Production costs have yet to lower for the higher-capacity Blu-ray formats and for the Hardware, but blank BluRay discs already are affordable.

Storage is on the Rise. And we need Higher capacity and cheaper per GB space.